


Acts of Contrition

by bayloriffic



Category: V (2009)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Making Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-24
Updated: 2012-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-30 01:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bayloriffic/pseuds/bayloriffic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For some reason, Erica can’t bring herself to leave the basement. Joe’s dead, Tyler’s gone, and all Erica wants to do is sit in a dank, drafty basement with a terrorist. Her life has taken some weird turns this past year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acts of Contrition

**Author's Note:**

> Picks up after “Siege” (2.06)

For some reason, Erica can’t bring herself to leave the basement. 

Joe’s dead, Tyler’s gone, and all Erica wants to do is sit in a dank, drafty basement with a terrorist. Her life has taken some weird turns this past year. 

She’s pretty sure Hobbes wants her to leave. He keeps giving her these sidelong glances and he’s acting kind of jittery and nervous, but he hasn’t actually said anything, so. 

Besides, every time she thinks about going home -- back to her empty house, with Tyler's cereal bowl still sitting in the sink, with Joe's running shoes sitting next to the front door, still caked with mud -- she just...she can't do it. Not right now. So she stays in the basement with Hobbes because she's got no idea where else she can go.

Jack and Chad left a while ago, both of them telling her how sorry they were about Joe. About Tyler. About everything.

Before he left, Jack gave her a hug. It was nice. Comforting. Priestly.

The thing is, though, she’s not sure she wants comforting and priestly right now. She’s not sure she deserves either of those things because all of this is her fault and she needs to be with someone who can understand that. 

Which is maybe why she wants to stay here with Hobbes. He hasn’t tried to comfort her once. Or tried to tell her he’s sorry about her dead husband and runaway son. There’s something really appealing about that, somehow. 

The old ratty sweatshirt she’s wearing is starting to unravel at the hem, and there’s a string on the left cuff she can’t stop pulling at. She’s managed to wrap it around her thumb three times -- the tip of the finger starting to go purple and numb -- when Hobbes clears his throat.

She looks up and he’s right in front of her, standing just a foot or so away. 

“You, uh, want some tea or something?” he says.

Erica feels a laugh bubbling and her chest, high and hysterical. She stops tugging on the thread long enough to clamp a hand over her mouth, trying to tamp it down, willing herself to hold it together. 

Hobbes is looking at her strangely, like she’s a wild animal he doesn’t quite know how to handle. 

She gives herself a second to calm down, swallowing the laugh back down.

“Do you, uh -- do you actually have tea?” she finally asks, and she’s proud at how normal she sounds. How calm. Not at all like a hysterical wreck who's falling apart at the seams. 

“No, actually. I don’t.” Hobbes gives her a rueful smile. “I do have scotch.”

“Sounds great."

Hobbes walks over to his little kitchenette area and pulls a bottle of scotch from underneath the sink. He grabs two plain black mugs from the drying rack and pours a healthy shot into each one. 

When he hands her one, their fingers brush and Erica feels her stomach flip a little. God, what is wrong with her?

The alcohol burns the cut on her lip and the bruise above her eye is starting to throb and, all of a sudden, she feels like she’s going to cry. She bites the inside of her cheek and takes another drink, the whiskey making her feel warm, but not much better. 

They drink in silence, sitting close together on the bed. They're two mugs in when Hobbes finally says something.

"You want to play cards or something?" 

Erica shakes her head a little, not sure she heard him right. "I'm sorry?"

"Cards," he says, walking over to the desk and opening one of the drawers. It makes a screech -- metal on metal -- that makes her jump. When he turns around, he's holding a deck of cards, shuffling them quickly and watching her. He's giving her an intense look, like he's talking about something other than playing a game, but if this is some kind of Fifth Column code or something, she's completely lost.

"Uh, sure," she says, looking at his hands. His fingers move fast, and she feels almost hypnotized watching him shuffle the cards. "I guess."

"Great." It must not be a secret terrorist code because the next thing she knows, he sitting next to her on the bed again, one leg hitched up and his body turned towards her. Erica scoots overs, mirroring him, and he starts dealing the cards.

"What are we playing?" she asks. There's something incredibly surreal about this, her and Hobbes, sitting on his bed playing cards like they're a couple of bored teenagers. But it's not like her life has been particularly normal lately, so she figures she might as well just go with it.

He's finished dealing out the cards, half a deck for each of them. "Beggar My Neighbour?" 

Erica raises her eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

Hobbes laughs and Erica smiles back, just the corner of her mouth turning up. It's the first time she's felt like smiling all day. 

He starts explaining the rules of the game, which Erica follows easily, grateful that he didn't pick something that requires much skill or thought.

At first, Erica can't concentrate, her mind keeps wandering back to the sight of Joe's blood on her hands, to the sound of Tyler's hate-filled anger, to everything that's happened. But after a few hands -- and a few more rounds of scotch -- she's pretty focused on the game, all of her mental energy focused on beating Hobbes. 

As they play, Hobbes keeps refilling their mugs and pretty soon Erica's drunk, everything around taking on a hazy, unreal quality. Hobbes spends most of the game talking steadily, telling her stories that she can barely follow. 

It's hard to focus on both the game and him, but the steady stream of words is nice, comforting almost. She vaguely realizes that he's doing all of this -- being nice to her, talking to her, playing cards with her -- out of pity, just to make her feel better, to get her to focus on something other what a mess her life is, but she can't quite bring herself to care.

*

After about an hour, Erica yawns hugely. She feels suddenly, completely exhausted, like the adrenaline rush she's had all day is finally wearing off. 

When she looks up, Hobbes is watching her with a careful look on his face, waiting for her to play a card. She yawns again and puts down an ace.

"You okay?" he asks, laying four cards down on her ace and then pushing the stack towards her.

“Tyler was right,” she says, squaring her cards and putting down the ten of spades. “I should have stopped it.”

“You couldn’t have known,” he says. He plays the queen of hearts, and Erica just stares blankly at the card.

“Maybe I should have,” she says, taking a long drink, finishing off what's left in her cup. She doesn’t normally like scotch, but this is surprisingly good. Bitter and a little smoky. 

“Stop it,” he says, sounding angry for some reason. “It’s not your fault, Erica.”

She throws her cards down on the bed and laughs a little, scrubbing a hand across her face again. Of course it’s her fault, who else’s fault could this possibly be? 

“Hey,” he says. He sets the cards down on the floor and for a second she thinks he’s going to touch her, but he doesn’t, just kind of sets his hand down awkwardly on the bed between them. 

Erica puts her hand down on top of his, threading their fingers together, and she doesn’t know what she’s doing exactly, but she can still smell Joe’s blood, still feel the sting of Tyler’s skin on her hand, and nothing makes sense right now. She kisses him before she can talk herself out of it. 

Hobbes hesitates for just a moment before he kisses her back, which surprises her. She's never seen Hobbes hesitate about anything. But after just a second, he does kiss her, hard and insistent, and that makes her feel worse and better, all at once. 

If he was being gentle -- like Joe was, just hours before (oh god, oh god, Joe) -- she wouldn’t be able to take it. But he’s not. He’s rough -- biting on her lip, opening the cut again, and fisting one hand in her hair -- and he tastes like scotch and Erica closes her eyes and kisses him back, clutching at him a little desperately. 

Her fingers dig hard into his shoulder and she can feel tense muscle beneath the thin fabric of his t-shirt. She reaches down and skims her fingers under his shirt, feeling the warm skin of his stomach, and he cups her breast through her shirt. She gets another flash of Joe and a sob escapes her mouth before she can stop it. 

Hobbes pulls away from her, this look on his face like she’s hit him, and then all of a sudden Erica’s crying, these gasping, heaving sobs that make it hard for her to catch her breath. 

It’s just a couple of seconds before Hobbes is next to her again, this time wrapping his arm around her shoulder, being gentle this time, and holding her to him. This time it's her that hesitates, before she gives up and leans into him, pressing her face against the smooth, hard planes of his chest.

He moves his hands gently across her back, rubbing soothing circles, and not saying anything, just holding her like that. 

Erica leans back a little, shifting her body so they can lie down next to each other on the bed. She realizes that she’s probably going to be embarrassed about this tomorrow, but she’s just so tired right now. So she tries not to think about it, just concentrates on calming herself down and getting through the rest of the night.

Hobbes lays next to her, his body pressed close against hers, his arms wrapped around her, his lips pressed gently against her hair. “I'm sorry,” he whispers, so quietly she almost thinks she just imagined it. 

It's the first time he's ever apologized to her and she wonders vaguely what he’s sorry for. She consider asking him, but she’s just so tired, the alcohol and exhaustion finally getting to her. Hobbes brushes a hand across her cheek, ghosting his fingers against the butterfly bandages under her eye, and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. 

As she drifts off to sleep, Hobbes runs his fingers through her hair, whispering things she can't make out, his voice low and unintelligible in her ear.


End file.
